Engineers are sucking!

[AMARAII]

Anyone else notice that engineer/pioneer units constantly get mopped by rifle squads in house to house combat.Demo charges ,if used at all, seem to have the effect of a firecracker.I demand a patch - please.

Also I believe American rifle squads are a bit understrengthed - they should be able to outgun a German squad toe to toe.(As a German player 100% of the time it pains me to say that,but Americans really had the weapons in WWII.)

[M. Bates]

Which German squad specifically?

Some of their squads are slightly puny, but then you have the parachute guys and the storm troops who are excellent at all ranges.

[The Commissar]

Actually, during toe-to-toe combat, the German "Geirbsjager" (did I butcher the spelling?) aka the Mountain Troops, are the most powerful infantry type you can get.

With a firepower value of well over 300 at a range of 40 metres, I never go out without at least a platoon when Im battling on a town map.

The Sturmtroopers are the best overall, however.

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"...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..."

- Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back"

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Actually, the standard US squads do have more firepower than the standard German ones. It is special German squads with high numbers of SMGs that are more effective in close combat. Those squad types are reasonably common, it is true. The ones with 2 MG42s in them also have good ranged firepower, but the others are worse than the U.S. standard squads at longer range (200 meters e.g.).

CM players probably overestimate the number of troops with the high SMG weapon mix and undoubtedly buy them more often than their historical counterparts could field them. Over the war as a whole, the Germans fielded about 12 million rifles and less than 1.5 million SMGs of all types. MGs were even less common.

For the whole-war average, 60 German infantry would by armed with 2 MGs, 6 SMGs, and 52 rifles. In CM, one often sees platoons of 40 men with up to 7 MGs and up to 25 SMGs, which is roughly 6 times as many automatic weapons per man as the German average over the whole war.

The portion armed with automatic weapons certainly rose over time, and special SMG heavy units were fielded with way more than their share. But even for the date, CM players are probably taking forces equipped with 2-3 times the average number of automatic weapons the German army actually had at that stage of the war.

If you want to see more realistic results and the players agree beforehand, allow the German player to buy the heavy-auto infantry types, but only with say 25% of his overall points. If he uses a vehicle heavy force, he will be able to do that with mostly automatic weapon infantry.

In an infantry heavy force, he will have to use some portion of rifle armed units. The Volksgrenadiers have rifle squad types as well as the SMG ones, and the other types can use the standard 44 and 45 rifle squads.

German practice was to use automatic armed platoons or companies in a counterattack role, so some units equipped that way is perfectly historical. It is only CM players never taking anything else that strains credulity and gets old after a while.

[MadmaN]

yeah, throwing a detpack in a house should level it. its like 3 lbs of TNT. the gammon bombs are real good though.

[Monte99]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by AMARAII:

Anyone else notice that engineer/pioneer units constantly get mopped by rifle squads in house to house combat.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I haven't seen any problem here, except those rare occasions when I foolishly have such a squad too far forward with no support. The "Army of One" concept doesn't work real well with CM.

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"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."

-Bertrand Russell

[CATguy]

I find the US squads to be the best. When I play them I usually engage the enemy at 100 plus meters so as to stay out of effective range of their smg's if they are equiped with them. I usually can cause suppresion and come in for the kill. When Playing as the Germans I wait for less than 100 meters so I can deliver raw firepower quickly with my smg squads. I always need to have some rifle squads around to help compliment the firepower at different ranges. Of course HMG's help out here as well....

[Forever Babra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MadmaN:

yeah, throwing a detpack in a house should level it...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Provided they don't throw it BACK!

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My P-47 is a pretty good ship

And she took a round coming 'cross the Channel last trip

I was thinking 'bout my baby and letting her rip

Always got me through so far...

[von Lucke]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MadmaN:

yeah, throwing a detpack in a house should level it. its like 3 lbs of TNT. the gammon bombs are real good though.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Been there, done that. Unfortunately, the Engineer squad was in the house (2-storey, light, already damaged) and brought it crashing down on itself and it's attacker.

And from mucking about in the editor, I believe Gammon Bombs and Demo Charges have exactly the same rating. At least, when you edit an Ami para unit, it lists "Demo Charge" in the equipment list, not "Gammon Bomb".

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

For the whole-war average, 60 German infantry would by armed with 2 MGs, 6 SMGs, and 52 rifles. In CM, one often sees platoons of 40 men with up to 7 MGs and up to 25 SMGs, which is roughly 6 times as many automatic weapons per man as the German average over the whole war.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Slightly fallacious thinking here, mefinks. First as you rightly say, that is the whole war average, so it is irrelevant if you look only at 1944-5 (The Sturmgewehr 44 was named that for a reason). Also, the number of rifles was huge, but they would probably be found at rear-area security, handed to drivers, cooks, used in training etc. So at the sharp end in 1944-5 your 6 SMGs out of 60 guys figure is almost certainly totally off-base and also irrelevant in comparison to what we find in CM.

I agree that there is a tendency when playing Germans to look at the FJs and GJs a lot and lovingly when buying forces (I know I do, but I can restrain my self, sometimes). Then again, if you read combat accounts from Commonwealth divisions in Holland, that is what they faced, so historically it would have been quite frequent to see UK/Fallschirmjaeger encounters.

As for VG squads. A German player who buys exclusively SMG squads or VG SMG platoons, if he does not know the weather and the map, shoots himself in the foot (pardon the pun) because if he is stuck with a day/no fog open map, he will never get in range of the Allied squad. The VG platoons are not very well rounded IMO.

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[Olle Petersson]

CATguy got it right:

The optimum mix wrt efficiency, not historical, is to have some SMG squads (like a SMG company) for the close range (<100m), some HMGs (like a MG company) for the medium range (<250m), and artillery or tanks for the longer ranges.

It works like charm.

Cheers

Olle

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Strategy is the art of avoiding a fair fight...